Chavez Halts Venezuela Nuclear Plans After Japanese Crisis

[rabs]

Source: Bloomberg



President Hugo Chavez said that he’s halting plans to develop nuclear power in the South American country as Japan struggles to avoid a meltdown at a plant after last week’s earthquake and tsunami.

“I’m ordering Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez to freeze all nuclear power development projects for peaceful means,” Chavez said today on state television.

Chavez signed a deal with Russia’s Rosatom Corp. in October to develop nuclear power in Venezuela including a research reactor. Electricity Minister Ali Rodriguez said on Oct. 21 that Venezuela hoped to eventually produce 4,000 megawatts of nuclear power.



Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-16/chavez-halts-venezuela-nuclear-plans-after-japanese-crisis.html

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Short blurb on Bloomberg, which left out this quote:

“Lo que ha pasado en las últimas horas es sumamente riesgoso y peligroso para el mundo entero, porque a pesar de la gran tecnología y los avances que tiene Japón, fíjense lo que ha venido ocurriendo con algunos reactores nucleares”, dijo Chávez.

"What has happened in the past few hours is highly risky and dangerous for the entire world, because despite great technology and the advances Japan has, focus on what have been occuring in some of the nuclear reactors."

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Wise move. Venezuela is an earthquake-prone country on the northern shoulder of South America.

Other nations in LatAm that have N-plants -- Brazil, Argentina and Mexico, another earthquake-prone nation.

[Zoeisright]

1. He's got more common sense than a lot of people.

Why do we continue to play with poison? It can't be contained, period.

[jtuck004]

2. I agree. We should not install any more 40 year old nuclear reactors today.

And those cars with the pointy chrome bullets on the front and fins on the back with no safety glass or seat belts, we should stop building those too. Even though they looked way cooler back then.

[Codeine]

12. Your point will be lost on this crowd, I'm afraid.

I suspect we're seeing the end of nuclear energy for quite a while, and more's the pity.

[tiny elvis]

17. the point that we will be running obsolete nukes for another 14,000 service years?

another forty years playing 'what's this lump?'

[tclambert]

15. I fear Codeine might be right. Pebble bed technology and hydrogen fusion will suffer

because people will fear all things nuclear and point to Fukushima. The oil companies will win again. And our long term energy future will remain uncertain, and potentially disastrous.

[fasttense]

19. Yet for some reason those pointy nosed cars didn't leave behind

radiation that poisoned most everything nearby.

And here is another strange fact. Pointy nose cars wont get into your milk supply or food supply to destroy a child's thyroid, give them cancer in a couple of months or years, or seep out to contaminate drinking water decades later. And I know of no pointy nose cars that can wipe out or seriously poison thousand of people simply because they broke down.

Man always thinks they can build catastrophe proof equipment but like the Titanic, nature has a way of proving man wrong.

[bluedigger]

3. Nuclear projects for non-peaceful means are still in play, then?

:shrug:

[ClarkUSA]

4. Why does Chavez need nuclear power? Venezuela has a fossil-fuel bonanza.

[christx30]

6. That's not going to last forever. n/t

[rabs]

7. At the time the accord was reached in 2008

Chavez said this;

By Jeremy McDermott in Caracas 3:27PM BST 29 Sep 2008

"We certainly are interested in developing nuclear energy, for peaceful ends of course, for medical purposes and to generate electricity," Mr Chavez said during a political rally of his United Venezuelan Socialist Party in Caracas. "Brazil has various nuclear reactors, as does Argentina. We will have ours and Vladimir said Russia is ready to help Venezuela develop nuclear energy."

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That was then; guess Chavez has seen the light after what is happening in Japan.

[devilgrrl]

5. What a lunatic!!!!!!!!!!!!

:sarcasm:

[Zorra]

9. sheesh, yeah. Next he'll be putting solar panels on everyone's houses.

:yoiks:
Indisputable proof that social democracies are inherently evil.

[malaise]

22. Ditto

Bravo Hugo!!

[vicarofrevelwood]

8. Wise indeed

[joshcryer]

10. He got an out for one of his more silly proclimations.

It would've never gone anywhere to begin with. Now he can save face and silently close that chapter.

[caseymoz]

11. Actually, since this is hurtling out of control in Japan

I can even see nuclear hawks reconsidering their stances on nukes after this. Yes, I heard them make reassuring remarks about how nukes are great even yesterday, but then they really thought Japan would get this under control and it was already as bad as it was going to get.

When this is over and a huge part of Japan is uninhabitable, they will think again.

[DeSwiss]

13. K&R

[Judi Lynn]

14. Thanks for the info. Rec.

:kick: :kick: :kick: :kick:

[Firebrand Gary]

16. Thats a step.

Let's see if there are any serious world leaders who state that they are de commissioning all of their reactors. What kills me, iS WE HAVE THE FUCKING TECHNOLOGY!

[Bacchus39]

18. dumb idea to begin with n/t

s

[JJW]

20. Obama Administration

as of yesterday 3/15, the Obama Administration is maintaining their position that nuclear power is safe.

[IsItJustMe]

21. Kind of makes you wonder, don't it? Someone once told me that he suppose to be real smart. I

really don't know if I trust that too much any more.